My flesh and blood
by AllLovableObjects
Summary: The first canyon chase, from the perspective of Immortan Joe, and the crew of the Bigfoot. Nux is psychic. Immortan Joe, Nux, Rictus Erectus, Imperator OC, Splendid Angharad.


Immortan Joe stared ahead. His imperators had brought Deathmask, a skilled mountaineer, to drive the Bigfoot over the rocks. The man had stood uselessly with the others, fidgeting by the driver's door. The Immortan shoved them aside without a word. Slid across the baking leather and wedged his legs under the steering column. The guts were all exposed and his robe was streaked with oil. Clutch in, lowest gear. His men scurried away from the big wheels. As if they could bite. He hit the throttle. The left wheel spun and spewed rocks. He gunned it again and thought of how those weak men would shred underneath. They had come along, for what? It was the Immortan, and the desert. And ahead, somewhere up the road, his own flesh and blood.

Now he sat in the cab before the rock pile, steadying himself. There was a gulf in his chest and a fizzing behind his eyes. His scarred hands felt alive with needles. The rocks rose above him, black before the white hot sky. His flesh and blood. Nothing could hold him back. The cab tilted as he made the first ascent. The left rear wheel was firm on old packed scree that had formed part of the canyon wall. The right front he plunged into a mass of newly fallen rocks. Nudged the throttle, then gave it more gas as the world tilted again and the right rear took hold. He turned the wheel sharply, locking both front wheels into a rut, and slowly angled the car further to the left. Decades of ploughing military vehicles through abysmal terrain. He didn't even think.

His mind was on fire. His hands were on fire. And, hidden below his raiments, the strip of cloth was on fire, burning into his skin. It was white, pure, steeped with their love and the times they shared. Would share. The life of the new son of the Immortan. His vision was red.

The Jawbone Imperator clung to the Bigfoot as it rocketed through the canyon. His wrist snapped back. He felt the downshift. Lurched forward. Metal bucked and charged. The car had become a wild thing. I want to live, he thought. I want to live. Acceleration as the canyon became narrower. He had thought Rictus would drive. But the idiot son stood on top, riding waves of terror like him. God himself was in charge. Not just a god, but a force of nature. A tornado of fire. They would all be swept to their deaths. Strangely, he thought then of his own vehicle, left behind the fallen rocks. How he had cleaned and sealed the intake, neatly packed the spare parts. All for nothing. The two warboys suddenly started cheering and whooping. He looked up, and saw a dark mass motoring ahead. We must attack. The thundersticks drew his attention. Rattling around. Secure them? No use. The entire ammo rack was coming loose. Then, a thump like a bomb as the rear shocks hit. The tray floor rose up like a mountain, and the whole rack spilled out. This is suicide. He looked ahead again as the car pitched. A wall of rock. No road. The front wheels dove in. The engine roared. The floor flew up again, hit his chin, and they were airborne. Somehow plunging forward, they chased down the prey.

The Immortan raised his hand from the wheel, and the world was still. There she was, heavy with his child. Come to me, my lover, my flesh. Splendid! He entreated. Her eyes glared back. She wished to teach him a lesson, then, to teach him how to love. She floated there, just across from him, on the side of his stolen War Rig. I will learn, for you. I will get you all back. He felt his body drawn out from the Bigfoot, and then, rising, step by step, the Immortan walked across the air to his pure bride. All eyes were on him as time itself stopped and lay prone. How could they deny the Immortan? He leaned into the Rig, reached to touch her face. She hissed and Joe recoiled, suddenly afraid. Then she bit. A gunshot rang out. He was plunged back into the snarling red world.

"Warboy down!" Rictus himself, son of Immortan Joe, witnessed the end. He saw the Warboy pitch back, and tangle in the harpoon line. The boy's head was blood. It had been a pistol shot from the cab of the War Rig. Rictus screamed as he threw the boy from the tray of the Bigfoot. Both Warboys gone now. The other must have died boarding the Rig. Dad broke hard, and soon they were out of range, behind the Rig. Rictus checked the harpoon line again. He saw what was coming. A high ramp of rock ahead. Dad accelerated. "Brace!" Rictus shouted. The front tires hit. The car bucked, and they fired up the slope and into the air. He held the harpoon gun down. They were still in the air. Then, the shock of heavy impact. Had they been rammed? No, they had landed well, just in front of the War Rig. Dad was the best driver. Dad was the best everything. Now it was Rictus' turn. He prayed silently to his father. Strength and skill. Dad slowed and they neared the cab of the rig. Their imperator leapt to the floor, expecting more shots from the rig. Rictus remained at the harpoon. They came alongside the driver's window and Dad matched speed. Rictus could feel the Immortan then, willing him to land the shot. He squinted and paused. The rope shot out like a snake. It snared the War Rig steering wheel, and they had control. He rapped with a fist on the roof of the Bigfoot. "Dad! Dad! We got them." Rictus secured the line, the Immortan hit the brake, and the War Rig rocked violently to the left. The flight of the traitors would end here.

The Warboy Nux huddled in a rusted turret, perched on the back of the War Rig. I'm a coward. He thought to himself. A failure. Rictus had thrown him onto the War Rig once they were close enough, but he had dropped the gun. He couldn't go any further. Why was he so weak? Immortan! he prayed. He drove his face into the sand and metal shavings on the floor of the turret. I need strength! Slowly, he began to meditate again, in the way of his childhood. A Warboy could always find the Immortan. Ask him for guidance, hear about the riches of Valhalla. The combat drugs helped him in. As the War Rig swayed, Nux opened his eyes and found himself before a pool in the Citadel. The Immortan sat on the other side, his back to Nux, softly humming a war song. Immortan Joe, Nux whispered. Tell me how to seek for glory! The Immortan did not answer. Something was wrong. Nux felt a horrible feeling of emptiness in his chest. At the bottom of the pool, something red was welling up. Above him, the roof of the cavern had become a gaping hole, the walls sheared off like broken teeth. Immortan! he said, please speak to me! A throbbing noise grew louder, and the cavern began to shake, shards of rock jolting about. It became loud enough to hurt. Immortan! he cried out. In the water, blood red letters formed. As he recognized the word, the voice of the Immortan boomed in his ears. It said: PAIN.

Rictus paid out the line and the Bigfoot dropped behind the War Rig. From here, they could steer it left against the rock wall. A great shearing sound assaulted his eardrums as the War Rig scraped against the rock. The trailer lurched back from the wall and hit it again. Dad braked hard as the War Rig suddenly deccelerated, leaping toward them. Rictus thought they must stop soon. But the rock wall suddenly ended. They entered a wide expanse in the canyon. And what he saw next made his heart ache for his poor Dad in the cabin below. His Splendid Angharad, most beloved of his wives, holding bolt-cutters, ready to cut the harpoon cable. There was a pathetic cry from below. And then Rictus knew. They were killing him. He could feel it. On the surface, the Immortan was going insane with rage. But somewhere, underneath the armour and the medals, Dad was being torn apart.

Nux chased the Immortan as he shuffled away, through the dream world, further into the deepest recesses of the Citadel. There were passageways and great heavy iron doors, that began to swing closed. Their slams shook the floor. "Immortan!" Nux hailed after him. "You are my saviour!" Nux reached a long, low cavern, its floor submerged in black water and oil. He shouted "By your hand we are raised up!" He spotted the receding, huddled figure of Immortan Joe, emerging from the far end of the foul lake. "You are the man who grabbed the sun!" Nux surged forward with renewed hope. Because for some reason, Joe had stopped in his tracks.

The cable broke. The Bigfoot hit an outcrop of rock and tipped. The Jawbone Imperator was flung from the tray. A wall of metal fired into his back, and he held it for life. Surely the car was wrecked now. Sand and rocks flew past below his feet. But no, somehow they kept going. Forced forward, by the will of a god. The imperator felt only too mortal. He had to get back into the tray. He kicked down for a foothold. There has nothing there. The entire left side of the Bigfoot had been stoved in. A great plume of sparks showered from the rear wheel. Down there, too, there was fire. He looked up in desperation. There she was on the War Rig, like him, hanging for life, a girl in white. One of Joe's wives. What did it matter? In a moment the nitrous tanks would go, and they would all die, him, Rictus, even the old man in the driver's seat. He wasn't really a god. He was just crazy, and persuasive. A bully, who imprisoned women and enslaved men. And now, it seemed, he wanted to die. The Jawbone Imperator took a second to mourn all of his well-laid plans. None of them were going back. The Immortan would take them all with him, to his fake afterlife. And then, just at that thought, as if to confirm his fears, the beautiful woman in white slipped, and fell from the rig.

Angharad, you were sad, you were fearful.

But in those times when you laughed with me,

how can you deny that you loved me?

Angharad, you are the sun that I hold.

For a moment, in the cab of the Bigfoot, Joe's old heart stopped.

The Immortan turned to Nux in his dream. Suddenly powerful, he held Nux immobile. So that he, too, must see Angharad fall. Immortan Joe's face was gone. In its place was a bloody mess. Blood glistened on the arch behind where his jaw should have been, and the air bubbled in what remained of his windpipe. He held Nux so close that he could feel it, as the god's hot breath hissed out of him. There was no sound. Only pain and loss. And within the red muck, the god's wrecked vocal cords strained to their end. The faceless thing writhed, as, through the air before them, his bride fell.

Perched on the tray of the Bigfoot, Rictus could do nothing but watch. Splendid Angharad was a mound of white on the red sand, hurtling toward them. He felt the wheel move in his father's hands. No, Dad. The Bigfoot lunged left at first, away from the girl. Then the right wheels pitched, kicked high into the air. The car spun back. It bit rock, and they rolled over completely. Dad! he screamed. Suddenly, the sky was below him and there was ground above. He landed and the adrenalin made him leap in the air. The Bigfoot was gone.

Nux jolted awake. Screeching metal echoed like thunder as the Bigfoot destroyed itself. It broke like a wave on the rocks. He felt the throttle back off, far ahead in the cab of the War Rig. He hazily judged that the pursuit had ended for now. But Nux was beaten. He could not summon the energy to rise and survey the wreckage. The last of the rock walls flickered in the sun through the window, high up above him. Shivering and helpless, Nux let the rig sweep him out of the canyon and into the plain beyond. He had already seen enough.

And, of course, the Immortan rose from the wreckage. Unmarked. Without words. Nothing in his heart now, but fire and hatred, hotter than ever. And on the road ahead, waiting for him to grasp at them again: His flesh and blood.


End file.
